Gaming performance enhancing software... any good?

[20mmrain]

The other day I was ordering some parts for a client that I was building a computer for. The place I ordered his video card from also offered to sell me some software at half price to go with his 2 5770's that I was ordering for him. The software was supposed to enhance his gaming experience with shutting down down all the unneeded back ground processes running. They also claimed that it would fine tune some setting with the Graphics card to gain some extra Frames per Second.
Now the first part I believe that it would do........ the second part I doubt(Unless it was some kind of after market overclocking involved)

But my question is I turned them down because I still didn't want to spend the extra money for the person but....... after that I looked into some free ware varients of the same types of software. So anyway does this type of software actually pay to install it? Should I give it a Shot? Has anyone else tried similar software?

Or should I just stick to doing it myself? Let me know I have left an example of the type of software I am talking about below in a link...........And if I should use it ...... Is this the best company or are there others that are better?

http://n4g.com/gaming/News-302394.aspx

 

[Mussels]

i'm pretty sure thats a FREE software AMD released, lol.


it doesnt really do anything, might free up a few MB of ram and thats it

 

[cadaveca]

What Mussels said. Here's a link to it:

http://www2.ati.com/misc/fusion/AMDFusion.exe

Designed to help optimize your PC the AMD Fusion Utility for Desktop can help you get smoother, more responsive performance and greater efficiency for the things you do most with your PC. With the simple touch of a button it works by temporarily shutting down software processes you may not need and boosting or optimizing processor speed depending on your intended task. That means you can you can run your PC even more efficiently when doing lighter tasks like enjoying multimedia or surfing but can get even more performance out of your PC when you demand it.

•Ignite gaming performance
•Optimize for media playback
•Make your PC hyper efficient
Made with simplicity in mind, we still let you behind the curtains and into the advanced interface to change how the utility works. You can customize with user selectable profiles to further optimize your PC for for your own personal PC experience. Also, you can easily build your own profile and choose exactly what you want disabled for a leaner footprint. Want to squeeze every bit of performance from your system? Engage our most advanced acceleration technologies such as Auto-Tuning and Hard Drive Acceleration.2 Push the limits of how lean and mean you can make your PC.

•Choose from multiple pre-loaded profiles, performance and optimization
•Customize user profiles for personalized optimization
•Overclock or underclock and take control2
•Engage advanced acceleration technologies
At AMD we are dedicated to bringing together the people, ideas and technologies that help ignite the PC experience and make it simpler to enjoy... All systems go!

Sound familiar?

 

[Wile E]

I've tried Game Booster. Works pretty well. But, tbh, with a rig this high-powered, there's no real benefit for me, as all games are already able to be maxed out for me. I imagine it would help more on a lower powered system.

Either way, it's better than manually having to stop services to game, then restart them when you're done.

 

[20mmrain]

LOL it would be funny that if it was the software that AMD released no to long ago....... But I don't think it was. The name of it didn't sound familure. This also wasn't the only time they offered to sell it to me. They also offered to sell it to me on another build when using a GTX 295

And no it wasn't Fusion Because it wasn't a totally AMD system I was building either..... Plus I might be Dumb but I'm not that dumb

 

[cadaveca]

There isn't much other software out there that actually does that though...Fusion is probably one of hte best products for such function, and is free. I wouldn't put it past them to have just simply re-skinned Fusion for thier own purposes...given that they have pimped it to you more than once.

 

[Asylum]

Its not going to give you much of a boost if any.
Also some games will reconize it as cheat software and get you banned if your playing online.
Stick with optimizing things yourself.

 

[TheLaughingMan]

Dido on what cadaveca said.

I have used similar software in the past version of my system when I had a 7600 GT and an AMD 4400+ on a 939 socket, and I have to say it did work. Some games I played had known memory leaks and the MB cleaning function did help change the game from 2 hours of stable play to not crashing from lack of memory. The software claimed to do other stuff to the background tasks, but I didn't really test it.

To be honest, if you have 2 5770 in a computer, the software would be pointless as every game you throw at it will be eaten alive for a least the next 1.5 years, maybe longer.

 

[TheMailMan78]

I find these applications to be useless on a properly tuned OS.

 

[phanbuey]

gamebooster is good... a "properly tuned" OS is one that has EVERYTHING extra diasbled... so if you have a wifi network... share media... have a wifi printer... use remote access or VPN to log into the office... or you just like eyecandy, having those services disabled will either make those things not work, will make your GUI look over a decade old, or will make things a pain in the butt bc you have to re-enable them later.

Disabling all that stuff will net you 1-3 FPS when you're doing 50... Every little bit helps. 5% here, 2% there, another 2% somewhere else, and you have a noticeably faster/smoother rig.

I would recommend game booster as well (+1 to Wile E).

 

[TheMailMan78]

gamebooster is good... a "properly tuned" OS is one that has EVERYTHING extra diasbled... so if you have a wifi network... share media... have a wifi printer... use remote access or VPN to log into the office... or you just like eyecandy, having those services disabled will either make those things not work, will make your GUI look over a decade old, or will make things a pain in the butt bc you have to re-enable them later.

Disabling all that stuff will net you 1-3 FPS when you're doing 50... Every little bit helps. 5% here, 2% there, another 2% somewhere else, and you have a noticeably faster/smoother rig.

I would recommend game booster as well (+1 to Wile E).

Thats not true at all. You can have the GUI adjust itself via the games .exe file property's. Thats just an EXAMPLE of what needs to be done and will only need to be done ONCE.

 

[Asylum]

Punkbuster anticheat has issued bans from some1 running this software more than one time.
I have seen it on atleast 2 players that i know.

 

[phanbuey]

Thats not true at all. You can have the GUI adjust itself via the games .exe file property's. Thats just an EXAMPLE of what needs to be done and will only need to be done ONCE.

Well no... it has to be done for EVERY game. and when you have 55 games, it has to be done 55 times. Gamebooster disables EVERYTHING ... BOINC, AIM, Virus Scan... whatever you have in the background.

and then re-enables them when the game closes... much easier.

 

[eidairaman1]

http://www.iobit.com/gamebooster.html

 

[TheMailMan78]

Well no... it has to be done for EVERY game. and when you have 55 games, it has to be done 55 times. Gamebooster disables EVERYTHING ... BOINC, AIM, Virus Scan... whatever you have in the background.

and then re-enables them when the game closes... much easier.

Why would you have 55 games installed? I mean really? Why? Most people have 3 or 4 main games installed. Also if your using AIM and such you should have them setup so they do not start automatically. Anyway who the hell uses AIM still?

 

[phanbuey]

Why would you have 55 games installed? I mean really? Why? Most people have 3 or 4 main games installed. Also if your using AIM and such you should have them setup so they do not start automatically. Anyway who the hell uses AIM still?

all my steam games... and why not? I use digsby... but AIM is the generic term for w/e IM client...

you're proposing leaving your virus scanner and all the other apps NOT on autostart!?

face it... game boosting software is easier.

 

[TheLaughingMan]

I have 18 installed. 4 of which I do not play any more at all. There is just no point in uninstalling them at this point. Friends like to try some games I may not play anymore and reinstalling it for one "test run" is annoying.

 

[Mussels]

you're proposing leaving your virus scanner and all the other apps NOT on autostart!?

... yes?

thats what i do.

steam starts with windows. MSN starts with windows. nothing else.

(and they dont auto-sign in either)

 

[3870x2]

my take on this is that anyone who is computerworthy (like those of us here in TPU) would not have a use of these programs, though for those who arent, this is a great way to optimize their performance.

 

[Polarman]

I just apply my regular tweaks when i finish installing windows. that's it.

 

[hat]

I don't see a reason to do it on your rig. You've got your quad core sitting at 3.4 and 4GB DDR2 800 memory. You're not going to see any performance gain by stopping background tasks.

I would take a look at http://www.blackviper.com/ and go through the "tweaked" column and disable some of those un-nescessary services, and of course take a trip through msconfig and disable the un-nescessary crap in there (like the stupid Java thing that looks for updates)

 

[pantherx12]

If your rig struggles to play a game whilst running other normal programs and processes you need top be spending money on hardware, not software.

 

[Wrigleyvillain]

I don't see a reason to do it on your rig. You've got your quad core sitting at 3.4 and 4GB DDR2 800 memory. You're not going to see any performance gain by stopping background tasks.

I would take a look at http://www.blackviper.com/ and go through the "tweaked" column and disable some of those un-nescessary services, and of course take a trip through msconfig and disable the un-nescessary crap in there (like the stupid Java thing that looks for updates)

Excellent advice.

 

[r9]

That software would have little effect on slow machines with small amounts of RAM and no effect on today machines. Today machines have too much spare CPU power IMO.

 

[20mmrain]

Okay just to recap after looking over my post. I originally asked this question to see if it would be worth my time to download one of these so called game enhancers. After looking it over I would say no I wouldn't get any real gains if not none at all!
I have a very modern computer and will just keep getting more so that way. I do appreciate you commenting back on this subject! So with the mix between my 5870 and my Overclocked Q9550 I doubt it would be worth my time